From mid-September two exhibitions with maps from the collections of Leiden University Libraries are on view. Mapping Asia opens in the National Museum of Ethnology and Mapping Japan in Japanmuseum SieboldHuis. The exhibitions are organised in the context of Leiden Asia Year and the symposium 'Mapping…

From Soledad Acosta de Samper and Albalucía Angel to Hazel Robinson Abrahams and Amalialú Posso Figueroa. During the Symposium & Workshop Experience and Voice: Library of Colombian Women Writers, we focus on books written by Colombian women writers from different historical periods. The symposium and…

How did “free agents” (entrepreneurs operating outside of the myriad of interests of the centralized, state-sponsored monopolies) in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire react to the creation of colonial monopolies (royal monopolies and chartered companies) by the central states in the Early Modern…

The stratum corneum (SC) plays a fundamental role in the barrier function of the skin. The SC consists of corneocytes embedded in a lipid matrix.

At the beginning of July the prestigious library of Ton Koopman, acquired earlier this year, arrived at the Orpheus Instituut Koetshuis. Thousands of books were moved from Ton Koopman's house near Amsterdam to Ghent by a specialised firm.

On December 3, Erik Kwakkel (University of British Columbia) will give a lecture in the University Library Leiden, titled “Writing on the Wall: Medieval Advertisement Sheets in Perspective.” Professional scribes in the Middle Ages produced advertisement sheets with which they presented themselves to…

The people behind the Leiden University Libraries aim to maintain the level of their services to clients as much as possible. They are making thankful use of internet, but not everything can be put online.

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

Two Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been placed in front of the University Library in memory of the Jewish Cosman family. At the time of the Second World War, they lived in one of the houses where the library is now located.

Erik Kwakkel, researcher at the Faculty of Humanities, has found an extraordinary manuscript in the University Library’s extensive collection of medieval books. The book in question dates back to the first half of the eleventh century and is made entirely out of waste left over from the production of…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has acquired a rare manuscript map of Suriname. The map from 1830 is almost 2.5 meters long and is highly detailed. It was hand-drawn by Helmuth Hendrik Hiemcke (1808-1858), one of the official surveyors employed by the colonial administration, and shows Suriname in…

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

Silver jewellery, sculptures made of cork and intriguing photos of psychiatrists' treatment rooms. Staff at Leiden University exhibit their artworks in the Old Library. The summer exhibition can be viewed until 12 August.

Professional scribes in the Middle Ages produced advertisement sheets with which they presented themselves to potential clients. In this lecture Erik Kwakkel will show known and new examples of such advertisement sheets and interpret their importance for our understanding of the culture of writing in…

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

The role of transnational, non-institutional networks in the opening up of British transatlantic trade at the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th century

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Caminada et al. examine elderly poverty across 16 European countries (2005-2022).

From as early as classical antiquity there has been an interplay between literature and medicine.

To what extent are individuals socialised with heteronormativity and gender norms by the national context in which they live, by Dutch schoolbooks, and within Dutch families?

By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions.

The programme for the Leiden Asia Year in 2017 is now available. Rector Carel Stolker launched the new website www.leidenasiayear.nl at the opening of the Academic Year of Leiden University on 5 September.

2,240 plant extracts from 1,299 different plant species of Dutch origin. That’s the collection of the Dutch Extract Library, which has recently been transferred to the Institute of Biology Leiden. To plant biologist and contact person for this library Pingtao Ding this is a true treasury. ‘To bring…

On 3 September 2019, Ilektra Antonaki defended her thesis 'Privatisations and golden shares: Bridging the gap between the State and the market in the area of free movement of capital in the EU'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. S.C.G. Van den Bogaert.

The midterm elections in the United States will be a vote of (no) confidence in president Trump and his divisive leadership style, says Brendan Carroll, assistant professor Public Administration. In this blog he explains why voter turnout can be a decisive factor.

Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a PhD position within the project ‘Libraries as Links in Learning: Making the Meaning of Manuscripts’ (1.0 fte, 4 years). The PhD candidate will track changing professional and scholarly practices and attitudes towards…

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn, Chelsea Daymon and David Malet, wrote RESOLVE Network Research Report that examines career foreign fighters who have traversed from one insurgency to another.

Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU and International Law at LUC The Hague, has co-authored a report entitled 'UN 2.0: Ten Innovations for Global Governance 75 Years beyond San Francisco'.

A study on the utilisation of Iron Age rectangular structures and related depositional practices in the Low Countries

Free childcare: Professor Egbert Jongen sees the potential drawbacks. The allocated budget could be used more effectively, for one thing. He discusses this issue at length with Geert de Wit in Dutch financial newspaper ‘Het Financieele Dagblad’.

The Leiden Leadership Centre is a member of the Global Leadership Centres Roundtable (GLCR). The Global Leadership Centres Roundtable is the international network of university-based leadership centres.

Assignments, work groups, deadlines and the first exams in sight! The Get Started campaign of Leiden University Libraries aims to help new students to find their way in the library. We can use the help of teachers for this campaign.

On December 3rd, AI4LAM (Artificial Intelligence for Libraries, Archives, and Museums) was launched in London. Leiden University Libraries (UBL)is a founding member, along with more than 40 leading international heritage and knowledge institutions. Together with our partners in AI4LAM, UBL aims to promote…

From March 1, Alenka Prinčič will be the new Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at Leiden University Libraries. Her expertise in the areas of Research Support, Research Infrastructures and Open Publishing as well as her longstanding experience as a manager are excellent starting points…

In ‘Dimensions of Free Speech’, Devrim Kabasakal Badamchi (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) offers a new theoretical framework for free speech by critically analysing the major justifications for free speech. Kabasakal Badamchi argues for a justification: namely the double-grounded…

In this study, we evaluated the influence of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) spray drying conditions, in the absence of organic solvent, on the ability to produce dry protein/trehalose formulations at 1:10 and 1:4 (w/w) ratios.

Graphic Novels and Comics have developed from pulp status to an entirely self-contained medium. This form of storytelling is not limited to stories of superheroes but has been used, molded and reshaped to display historical events, classic stories and autobiographical memoirs. But where should you begin…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an extraordinary Chinese manuscript at auction in Hong Kong. It concerns an Imperial Edict (dated 1582) from the Ming dynasty period, at one time part of the former collection of well-known sinologist and author of detective-novels Robert van…

How were Spanish commanders fighting in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577 portrayed in Spanish and Dutch narrative sources during the Eighty Years War?

Private collectors John Steegh and Harrie Teunissen from Dordrecht have donated their entire collection of maps, city plans and atlases to Leiden University Libraries (UBL). In almost 40 years they brought together circa 17,000 map sheets and 2,300 atlases and travel guides. Especially the thematic…

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

Human Rights organisation Amnesty International recently set up a walk that passes by important locations in Leiden in relation to human rights. The Kamerlingh Onnes Building, home to Leiden Law School, has been included in the route.

Radical books on Islam glorifying armed jihad and humiliating Jews and Christians are available in the Vught prison library.

Rich countries are getting richer because of environmentally polluting (construction) investments from the past, largely at the expense of poor countries. This was shown by long-term economic and environmental data. 'The gap between poor and rich countries is widening.' Scientists from the Leiden Institute…

With a recently published major research project and an exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, the struggle for independence in Indonesia has been thrusted back into the spotlight. Leiden University is devoting attention to this topic as well. History students Sander van der Horst and Melle van Maanen joined…